They would always be a family, but if she'd learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn't a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn't control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

I remember staring at my son endlessly when he was an infant, stunned by his very existence, wondering where on earth he had come from.

I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play.

We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.

I'm drawn to kids that are already born. I think some people are meant to do certain things, and I believe I'm meant to find my children in the world somewhere and not necessarily have them genetically.

Fatherhood is the unending imperfect task of turning yourself into your dad while secretly maintaining the unbridled elation of your boyhood